Wikipedia:Tip of the day/January
On Wikipedia, you can look things up by searching or browsing... If you know what topic you want, type it into Wikipedia's search box and press ↵ Enter
If you would like to explore Wikipedia's coverage, overall, or for a particular subject, browse these pages:
- Portal:Contents/Outlines—site maps by subject
- Portal:Contents/Categories—classified index
- Portal:Contents/Portals—collections of excerpts, by subject
If you would like to edit Wikipedia, just click the [Edit] tab (to use VisualEditor which is a WYSIWYG editor) or click the [Edit source] tab to use the Wikipedia text editor. Both tabs are at the top of the desired page or page section.
To create a new article, type the name of the topic in the search box and press ↵ Enter. If a page doesn't already exist with that name, Wikipedia will let you create one. Follow the instructions on the screen. As an alternative, the Wikipedia Article Wizard helps you through the process of submitting a new article to Wikipedia. Redlinks are another way to create new articles. Mouse click on the red link and Wikipedia will let you create a new article with that name.
- Read more:
- Help:Searching
- Portal:Contents
- Wikipedia:Tutorial
Newly created articles are checked for obvious problems by members of the New pages patrol. These editors collaborate to identify articles which do not meet the criteria for inclusion and/or to tag them for any glaring issues that need attention. Article classification codes are assigned (on the article's talk page) based on an assessment of the article's quality. The assessment class codes may be updated by any contributor as the article is improved.
Typically, an article may begin with a Stub-class or Start-class code and be upgraded to C-class, then B-class as the article becomes more complete. Next, an article might be submitted to the peer review process to receive ideas and critical feedback from other editors. Upon successful completion of the peer review, an article might then be nominated for GA-Class (Good Article) status. At each step, the nominator is expected to implement the feedback they receive.
Articles achieving GA status are then potential candidates for FA-Class (Featured Article) status. Examples of featured articles are viewable daily at Wikipedia's Main Page.
You have just grabbed the page's title to place a link on another page, but now you want to add a section title to it to create a section link, but the copy cache is already full. Instead of making two trips back and forth to the page you wish to add the link to, try this...
...use the search box as a quick-and-dirty edit window.
- Copy/paste the title into the search box, followed by a "#"
- Copy/paste the section title after the "#"
- Enclose in double square brackets and copy/paste the whole string to the page you wish to edit.
The search box is also a handy place to store copy text while you copy/paste something else. (But do not forget it is there!)
If you use Firefox, there is a user script you can install called Watchlist sorter.
This script sorts your watchlist by namespace, and adds spaces within each entry. This makes the watchlist much easier to read.
To install the script, copy/paste the following line into your your common.js page. This will install the script across all your skins.
importScript("User:The Transhumanist/WatchlistSorter.js");
Note: After saving, you have to Bypass your cache. To do this in Firefox, hold down the ⇧ Shift key while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl+⇧ Shift+R). Or, you may have to {{}} the Wikipedia server cache.
Since anyone can edit almost any Wikipedia article, it is possible for biased, out of date, or incorrect information to be added to Wikipedia. To improve Wikipedia's reliability, fix these problems by doing the following:
- As often as you can, monitor and check changes made to articles. Your Watchlist, and the Related changes and Recent changes features are useful for this.
- Clean up vandalism and report vandals to Administrator intervention against vandalism (WP:AIV). Many vandalism clean-up tools are available to assist you.
- Fix mistakes:
- Fix typos, and grammatical and spelling errors. Join the Typo Team and learn their methods.
- Fix factual errors. You could also join the Fact and Reference Check Project.
- Fix bias. See Wikipedia:Systemic bias.
- For dubious statements that are not sourced or are likely to be challenged, hunt for references that are reliable, relevant, accurate, objective, and timely. Add citations for these to the article.
- Read the references provided by articles and check them for reliability, relevance, accuracy, objectivity, and timeliness. That is, read the source material cited, and remove irrelevant or unreliable citations.
Communication between editors takes place at Talk pages.
To send a message to another editor:
- Go to their user Talk page (e.g. User talk:xxxxx)
- Click the "Add topic" button at the top and, when the editing window opens, you can type your message and a subject heading to your post.
- At the end of your message, include your signature with ~+~+~+~ (~~~~ four tilde characters).
Note that user talk pages are publicly viewable, so it is not a private message to the user concerned. Even when deleted, the message is forever viewable in their History.
Editor replies: Unless the other user includes a link to your user page in their reply (called a Ping), you will not get a notification that they have responded, so it is a good idea to either check their talk page every now and then, or add it to your Watch list.
For images, there are free tools like GIMP and ImageMagick, and commercial ones like Adobe Photoshop that provide a variety of processing filters. The preferred formats are Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) for drawings, and Portable Network Graphics (PNG) for pictures. You may also use JPEG.
Vector graphics are preferred to raster graphics for drawings, because they can be scaled as needed without losing information, and because they can be more easily edited. Please remember to follow our guidelines and policies when uploading images.
A dummy edit is a slight change in an article's wikitext that has no effect on the rendered page but allows you to save a useful edit summary. This is like a SMS (Short Message Service).
To make a "dummy edit" just make a slight non-rendering change to the page, fill out the edit summary with your short message including this tag: [[WP:dummy edit]] (include the four square brackets), and save your change. (Note that a null edit does not modify the wikitext and does not allow you to leave an edit summary.)
Uses for dummy edits:
- Correcting a previous edit summary
- Repairing insufficient attribution for copy-and-pasted Wikipedia content
- Addressing an accidental use of rollback
- Providing a note, from a user while logged-in, that notes an edit performed while logged out
- Sending brief messages regarding editing issues
- Providing proof of activity from time to time by a dormant but not dead user
- Prompting a bot to re-examine a page
Wikipedia uses the Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and WAV formats for audio, as they are not encumbered by patents (an issue that prompted the decision that MP3 files will not be hosted at Wikipedia). Software supporting Vorbis exists for many platforms...
Mozilla Firefox 4, Opera 10.5 and Google Chrome 3 (and later versions) each include their own support for Ogg Vorbis files.
As for multimedia players, Winamp can be used to play Ogg Vorbis files. Although iTunes does not natively support Vorbis, Xiph.Org provides a QuickTime component which can be used in players that rely on QuickTime, such as iTunes, on both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. DirectShow filters exist to decode Vorbis in multimedia players like Windows Media Player and others which support DirectShow.
Various online tools (such as Zamzar) are available which let you freely convert one file format into another, and can be useful when you want to upload a file to Wikipedia.
There is a six-part guide Introduction to navigating Wikipedia to help Wikipedia contributors. It consists of these topics:
If you are interested in editing Wikipedia, this tutorial will help you to get your bearings, learn how to find what you are looking for, and introduce you to a few of the most important pages.
An image's caption is text that accompanies the image. The caption may include the title of the picture and/or an explanation of what is depicted in the image. Not every Wikipedia image needs a caption: some are simply decorative, while some others are self-explanatory. Captions should not repeat the article title name unnecessarily.
If you decide that an image does not need a caption, then please follow the advice at Wikipedia:Alternative text for images to specify appropriate "alt" text. Alt text should not be a mirror of the caption text. Captions can be added by using the frame or thumb parameter as part of an image tag. For example: [[File:imagename.jpg|thumb|Write the caption here]]
The easiest way to avoid making common mistakes is to know what they are. A collection of the most common recurring editing errors helps newcomers steer clear of them.
For guidance about the style and content of Wikipedia articles, see this tutorial. It also teaches about the Wikipedia community and important Wikipedia policies and conventions.
One of the most common methods used by WikiProject contributors to monitor and prioritize their work is that of assessing the articles within their scope. The de facto standard for these assessments is the Version 1.0 Editorial Team's assessment scale (shown below).
 FA
|
– The article has attained featured article status by passing an official review. |
 A
|
– The article is well organized and essentially complete, having been reviewed by impartial reviewers from this WikiProject or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class. |
 GA
|
– The article has attained good article status by passing an official review. |
| B | – The article is mostly complete and without major problems, but requires some further work to reach good article standards. |
| C | – The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains much irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant problems or require substantial cleanup. |
| Start | – An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete. It might or might not cite adequate reliable sources. |
| Stub | – A very basic description of the topic. However, all very-bad-quality articles will fall into this category. |
For a basic overview of article assessment, please see the Assessment FAQ.
Archiving is used on talk and project pages (never on articles) to keep them from getting too long to be useful, while retaining older discussions in case somebody should need to refer to them.
The preferred method for archiving a talk page is to copy the older content to a series of subpages. This can be performed either by hand or automatically by a bot.
You may find these templates helpful:
- {{Archive banner|state=uncollapsed}} (full page width banner)
- {{Archives|auto=yes|search=yes}} (float right box)
New articles are usually created and left in the Draft namespace (or a user's subpage) until they are ready for primetime.
{{Under construction}} and {{In use}} templates are intended for subsequent article tune-ups, and are posted at the article page top.
{{In use}} template is for articles actively undergoing a major edit for a short time to list them in Category:Pages actively undergoing a major edit.
{{Under construction}} is for articles actively undergoing construction to list them in Category:Pages actively undergoing construction.
As the article is developed, {{stub}} templates along with their switches (posted at article bottom) are used for articles still needing additional content.
A Talk page (also known as a discussion page) is a place for contributors to calmly discuss improvements to Wikipedia pages. It is not a forum.
All Wikipedia pages, including articles and user pages alike, have a corresponding Talk page. To switch to the current page's Talk page, click on the "Talk" tab above the page's title. At the very top of the page there is always a link to your Talk page.
All content and conduct issues should be discussed at either the article's or user's Talk page before requesting dispute resolution.
You can {{ping}} specific editors whom you would like to notify of your message post. Though there is no need to ping someone when you've edited their Talk page, because the Wikimedia software automatically notifies that user.
Trying to recall an editor's username can be challenging. There are various ways to solve this:
- If you remember the beginning of the username:
- Click on: user-contributions or contributions link either at the top or side of any article page
- Type the first couple of letters in the username box: wait 15-seconds and the box will magically appear with usernames starting with that letter combination
- If the username is still not there, type in another letter and wait. Usernames are case, punctuation, and space sensitive, so if a username is CamelCased, has punctuation, or has spaces, you will have to try those variations too.
- If you have ever conversed with them, you could check the histories of your own talk page and talk page archives. Set your view to (500).
- In your contributions, you could limit the namespace to user talk, and that would give you the names of all the users you have posted to on their talk pages. The same with the talk namespace (via your contributions).
- You could also search the talk namespace for your own signature, to locate the threads where others may have replied to you
- Where do they hang out? What are they renowned for? If you can remember where they have posted messages, then you can find their username.
- Users Search box for users by name or official capacity
To monitor or copy edit the upcoming featured article (FA) that will appear on the Main page, place {{FA-tomorrow}} (including the four curly braces) on your User page. Help Wikipedia put its best foot forward.
You can install user scripts written in JavaScript to add helpful features to your account, and to automate various tasks. You could write your own scripts. But many user scripts have already been written by Wikipedians, and they are ready to be made use of. To enable these scripts, simply copy and paste them into your common.js file. (Only logged-in users can install scripts). This will allow use of the script in any Wikipedia skin (Vector is the default skin).
Examples of scripts:
- wiktLookup – Double-click a word, and go to its definition on Wiktionary.
- Watchlist sorter – Sorts your Watchlist by namespace, and shows the pages for each namespace in alphabetical order. Also adds spacing for further ease of reading.
Some of the most popular scripts have become Gadgets, which can be enabled simply by checking an option under the gadget tab of your user preferences.
Wikipedia articles improved to C-class, and then B-class status may be submitted to the peer review process to receive ideas and feedback from other editors.
Upon successful completion of the peer review, an article can be nominated for GA-Class (Good Article) status.
A good article is...
- 1. Well written: Prose and layout are clear, and comply with certain aspects of the Manual of Style (MOS); in particular, the lead is a concise summary of the article.
- 2. Accurate and verifiable: Reliable sources are provided, and cited where necessary.
- 3. Broad: It covers the main aspects of the topic without going into unnecessary detail. It is encyclopedic.
- 4. Neutral: It represents viewpoints fairly and without bias.
- 5. Stable: It does not change significantly from day-to-day.
- 6. Illustrated: if possible and relevant, by images with acceptable copyright status, fair use rationales where necessary, and succinct captions.
In turn, good articles are eligible for being submitted as candidates for FA-Class (Featured Article) status.
Editors should avoid manually inserting large and small font sizes into prose. Increased and decreased font size should primarily be produced through automated facilities such as headings or through carefully designed templates. Below is one list of font sizing templates that have been tested and are available if needed:
| Code for inline content | Code for block content | Size | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
{{small|text}}{{smaller|text}} |
{{smalldiv|text}} |
85% | text |
{{resize|text}} |
{{resizediv|text}} |
90% | text |
| none | none | 100% | text |
{{large|text}}{{larger|text}}{{big|text}} |
{{largediv|text}} |
120% | text |
{{huge|text}} |
180% | text | |
{{resize|x%|text}} |
{{resizediv|x%|text}} |
custom | varies |
{{font|size=x%}} |
custom | varies |
{{small}} or {{smaller}}: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
{{resize}}: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Default: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
{{large}} or {{larger}} or {{big}}: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
{{huge}}: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Example: {{big|Will make the text here larger}} renders as: Will make the text here larger
Also, works with Unicode and IPA. Example: {{big|{{unicode|ὡ}}}} renders as: ὡ
To put this chart on your User page for reference use: {{font size templates}}
Wikipedia user Cacycle has created a text editor that replaces Wikipedia's default text editing window. It has advanced search/replace features built-in, including regex (regular expression)—and many other features.
It is called wikEd, and works with your Firefox, Safari, or Google Chrome web browser. Simply select wikEd on the Gadgets panel of your wiki Preferences, in the "Editing" section.
Do you need to correct a spelling error on a large number of pages?
Are there terms you need to linkify across an entire subject?
Do you need to replace a category tag on 500 articles?
AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) can do that and more. It is a free-licensed, semi-automatic editor created and maintained by Wikipedians, available to editors who have made at least 500 responsible edits in the main namespace. AWB includes a powerful list maker (up to 25,000 articles), to help you gather the titles of the articles you wish to process. An extended AWB Listmaker is available as a plug-in. AWB will even do regex (regular expression) find/replace.
Do you need help with the editing process and understanding Wikipedia's policies and guidelines? If so, ask a question at Wikipedia's Help Desk. While doing so...
- Please be patient. Help desk members are all volunteers, so sometimes replies can take some time. Check back to see if your question is answered.
- Please stay on topic. The Help desk is available only for questions about how to use or edit Wikipedia.
- If your question is a general knowledge query not specifically related to Wikipedia, please visit the Wikipedia Reference Desk instead, where asking knowledge questions is welcome.
If you are a new user...
- You may prefer to ask for help at the Teahouse, an area specifically for new users to get help with editing, article creation, and general Wikipedia use, in a friendly environment (while sipping your tea).
- Consider taking The Wikipedia Adventure, an online interactive and fun tutorial to get your feet wet in about an hour.
For a comprehensive directory of services and assistance that can be requested on Wikipedia see the Wikipedia:Request directory.
Try one or any of these strategies:
- Registered users can turn on Advanced mode. Just open the sidebar, select Settings and tap the toggle switch. This opens up a lot of functionality that the standard mobile view lacks.
- Double tap your touchscreen to upsize the font and readjust the margins to fit your screen.
- Bookmark frequently visited pages.
- To navigate to a new page, just replace the page name at the very end of the full link with the new page name.
The semi-automated article peer-reviewer checks pages against some basic Manual of Style (MOS) rules and generates a quick report.
It can be enabled as a Gadget in your user Preferences. Check off the box for: MoreMenu, adds Page and User dropdown menus...
After you save and your Preferences you will now have a tab on every page called Page. While you are at an article, hover on Page; hover on Tools; click on Peer reviewer.
You can add the {{help me}} template on your Talk page to request help. A volunteer will stop by soon after to assist you.
Bonus tip:
To create a link that you can click on to request help at any time, place the following template code on your Talk page:
{{edit|Special:MyTalk|{{icon|Q}} '''Ask for help on your talk page'''|section=new|preload=Help:Contents/helpmepreload|preloadtitle=Help me!}}
It will generate a link like this:
which you can leave on your Talk page permanently.
Wikipedia has a vandalism warning system that indicates the level of vandalism happening right now.
To use it, place the following template on your user page or talk page (with the curly brackets):
deleted text, inserted text, ▶ block move mark, moved block, single character changes, highlighted moved block and ◀ block mark, and ambiguous insertion aligned to line.
A page history shows the order in which changes were made to any editable Wikipedia page, the difference between any two versions, and a menu of special external tools. wikEdDiff merges all edit changes in to one wide diff view. The two column raw diff view will still be displayed below the wikEdDiff version.
Easiest install is at the Gadget tab in user Preferences. Check off: wikEdDiff, improved diff view between article versions (not needed if wikEd is used); save; . Can also be installed as a User Script.
For contributors, it can be a valuable learning experience to work on Wikipedia article cleanup. In addition, providing articles with missing information does improve the quality of these existing articles.
There are articles tagged with content issues which can be resolved to insure accuracy as the articles are developing. Remember to discuss major additions, changes, and controversial topics on the article's talk page.